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LAS B LAS DEL D MING “Where the truth never gets in the way of a good story…”

Year 258, Volume 1,789,002 01-Apr-07

RECORD ASSISTANCE, BUT RECORD INJURIES AT OUR NEW

STADIUM….

It was a great game on Sunday, with a record turnout of 13 players at the new Bishan stadium.

The game was of excellent quality, with the pitch and weather quite pleasant as well. It had rained

the night before and there was a light rain during the game, so both the temperature and the grass

were cooperative, for once.

The final result was 1-1 according to my records, but the other team insisted that the final result

was closer to 8-3 for their team. Since they had Raimundo on their team, it was obvious there was

going to be some fantasy and fiction in the final score line.

The other team’s strategy was to kick the ball forward to Junior and have him run like crazy and

score, which he did several times. Junior is faster, younger and more skilled than the rest of us

and it showed, and we were only saved from more goals when Junior decided to pass the ball to

someone else, like Raimundo, who would knock the ball all over the place, as most of us who

have played with Raimundo would know. Junior was unanimously voted man of the match.

The teams

Policia Federal: John Ronaldinho, Patron

Bermudez,Jarko the mad Finn, Sergio Passarella

Ems, Daniel JJ Lopez, Olivier Oligol Crespin,

Alejandro Van Basten.

The other team: Junior (see picture to the left)

(spectators/hooligans: Carlos, Marcelo, Marcos,

Raimundo, Phil…)

We also benefited from Olivier

bringing Argentina shirts for our

team, which according to Marcelo

made us look like Buenos Aires

Federal Police (Both because of the

color and the angry and bitter look on

our faces when the other team

scored). I was wearing the blue

Colombia shirt but still allowed me to

be a member of the Buenos Aires

federal police.

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We have a new Argentine playing with us this Sunday, Marcos No-nickname-yet, a very

accomplished player, apparently also a rugby star in Argentina, a skill he demonstrated well during

the corner kicks against myself and the other strikers. Fortunately (or unfortunately) he injured

himself and spent much of the second half standing in front of goal. Since he is about three times

the size of the goal, it was quite difficult to score against their team. Marcos ended up pulling his

hamstring, which alongside my injury set a record 2 injuries in one game… as Olivier often

reminds us “this never happened at Tanjung Rhu, now everyone is getting injured in Bishan”.

As for the other players on our team, Oligol had a few great exocet missiles launched from several

different angles, but none hit goal, like in the previous weeks. We were hoping that Oligol would

exercise more pressure on his employee the hammer Michelini and ask him to miss a few passes,

but Olivier didn’t bother with that kind of pressure.

The Patron Bermudez teamed up well with Jarko, producing the bulk of the goals for our team,

and according to some reports,they teamed up to foul the Hammer Michelini as well. The

Hammer subsequently took revenge on…me, sending me flying about 3 meters into the air with a

tackle from behind (curiously enough, he did not repeat his usual comment of “no te toque”…).

Anyway, while Jarko ran the whole field, Patron confined his coverage to about 5 square meters

in front of goal on the right wing, which actually produced pretty good results because he didn’t

disrupt play elsewhere.

We welcomed back Raimundo after a

relatively long absence due to his ballet

lessons on Sunday, and he was in good

form as usual. Must have been his Colo

Colo shirt. He was part of the Chilean

backbone of our opponents team which

totally destroyed us (Carlos, Junior and

Raimundo). Plus they had Marcelo

cutting us down in midfield, and little

Marcos in the back, so it was going to be a

tough game for us.

Olivier also brought Daniel, an

excellent defender who saved us

from about 10-12 goals through his

quick reaction time (he actually ran,

unlike the rest of us). We are told

that he resembles a very famous

Argentine player from the 1980s

called JJ Lopez (who played for

River Plate in the 1980s).

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Alejandro had a surprisingly quiet game, spent much of the time giving Marcelo dirty looks and

making some efforts to organize our admittedly disorganized midfield. Because in defense we

were solid, with Daniel and Sergio Passarella Ems, but going forward we were not very

organized. Sergio Pasarella Ems also had a quiet game, though we hear that the reason he stayed

in defense was because he had a rough night at Orchard Towers where he was definitely playing

on the attack, so he was understandably tired. It is possible that one of the reasons we lagged was

because Sergio was probably in good company with Alejandro and Patron, but of course we cannot

confirm that but it does sound right given past behavior patterns of Alejandro and Patron.

As a final note, your editor suffered the indignity of a major knee injury towards the end of the

game. Although early reports were that I did it to myself after being totally taken apart by Junior,

we have decided later, after watching the video replays, that it was a massive foul by Marcelo that

caused the injury. It doesn’t really matter than Marcelo was at the other end of the field, but he

deserves the blame anyway. As a result I will be away from the stadium for a few months, as the

doctor tries to rebuild my knee ligaments. Unfortunately, I will not be called up by FC Barcelona

for the rest of the season and will have to wait until the next season to play next to Etoo,

Ronaldinho, Messi and Deco & Co. The good news is that you now have a full time reporter

covering the games from now on.

-- The Editor

Phil macho Camacho came a bit late, and

more surprising wore an Argentina shirt

(Second Englishman to wear an Argentina

shirt at Las Bolas, first one was Richard

Bottomley a few years back…). Phil has

a remarkable amount of energy for

someone his age (68 years old, according

to Marcelo), and also has great ball control

and managed to take the edge off his team

which was engaging in rugby tactics after a

while.